1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for acquiring a face region of a photographed target person from a two-dimensional image which includes the face of the person and also processes the face region.
2) Description of the Related Art
The number of portable terminals such as cellular phones and PDA's (Personal Digital Assistants) with cameras has recently increased and it is expected that the portable terminals will be utilized in varied manners. There are various targets of the camera provided on each portable terminal or the like. From the ordinary users' viewpoint, the face of a person may be first on the target list. In one manner of the use of a photographed face image, the face image is assumed to be used as an attachment file of an e-mail when the e-mail is transmitted through a cellular phone or as the background image of a waiting screen.
As an example of conventional art which utilizes such a face image on the waiting screen of a cellular phone, there is a telephone equipment which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-24776. According to this telephone equipment, if there is a call from a person on the other end of the line, an image such as a photograph of a face which corresponds to a telephone number of the person on the other end of the line is extracted from image data which is registered in the telephone equipment and displayed. By doing so, a recognition unit which recognizes the person on the other end of the line and which has a high visual effect is realized.
However, the conventional art which is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-24776 has the following restrictions. Only the face images for which image data is already registered in the telephone equipment can be displayed and the face images can be displayed only as still images.
In comparison to these conventional uses of the telephone equipment, if the face image of a person on the other end of the line can be changed, like an animation according to the length of wait time until talking starts and the animation can be displayed on a display section, or, more specifically, if the operation of the vibrator of a cellular phone when a call is received is detected and estimated and thereby a vibrating face image can be displayed, then it is possible to provide not only visual interest but also information as to who is calling and how long the person on the other end of the line has been waiting, to the owner of the cellular phone (i.e., called person).
Further, if two face images can be selected from face images which are stored or photographed using an accessory camera as face images to be displayed on a waiting screen and a new face image obtained by synthesizing the two face images can be employed, then it is possible to provide a new usage of the face images in the portable terminal or the like. For example, it is possible to synthesize the face of a possible child of a couple and to utilize the synthesized face on the waiting screen of a cellular phone. In this way, it is possible to provide an effective usage of face image which is not feasible for the conventional cellular phone which uses only the face images stored or photographed by the camera.
To date, however, there exists no such a portable terminal, such as a cellular phone, which functions to display a face image which changes like an animation when a call is received or to exchange a part of one of the two photographed face images with that of the other face image, to synthesize the two photographed face images and to thereby display a new face image.